Anderson v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 04 March 1969
• Citation: 75 Cal.Rptr. 739,270 Cal.App.2d 346
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: Gladys M. ANDERSON and Lloyd M. Anderson, Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. STATE FARM MUTUAL AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendant and Respondent. Civ. 32321.

Page 739

75 Cal.Rptr. 739

270 Cal.App.2d 346

Gladys M. ANDERSON and Lloyd M. Anderson, Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. STATE FARM MUTUAL AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendant and Respondent.

Civ. 32321.

Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 5, California.

March 4, 1969.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing April 1, 1969.

Hearing Denied April 30, 1969.

R. P. Reddingius and Edward C. Baretta, Pasadena, for plaintiffs and appellants.

Spray, Gould & Bowers, Los Angeles, and Eugene Grace, Pasadena, for defendant and respondent.

KAUS, Presiding Justice.

Plaintiffs appeal from a judgment declaring that the defendant insurer is not liable with respect to a certain accident.

On September 22, 1962, plaintiff Gladys M. Anderson ¹ went to the Los Angeles County Fair in Pomona with her husband and relatives from Nebraska. They drove a Chevrolet loaned to plaintiff by her employer. At a ticket window on the fair grounds plaintiff met a Mr. Larson. Without telling anyone in her party she accepted Mr. Larson's invitation and left the fair grounds with him in his blue Falcon automobile. The stopped at two stores in Pasadena and Sierra Madre where plaintiff cashed over $100.00 worth of checks. She gave the proceeds to Larson. At 4:00 o'clock they arrived at the El Poche restaurant in San Gabriel. Three hours later plaintiff began to wish that the waiters would hurry up and serve dinner. She was getting anxious. In the meanwhile she had consumed part of a mixed drink. Larson then excused himself, apparently to go to the men's room. He never returned. Plaintiff, who had no money, had to sign for the bill.

At the trial plaintiff claimed that she had no recollection of events after signing for the bill and before regaining consciousness at the San Gabriel Community Hospital. She had suffered a fractured skull and other injuries. It was stipulated that at 7:52 p.m. she had been involved in an accident on San Marino Avenue, a short distance north of Los Robles. At that time she was driving a 1957 Cadillac, the property of one George D. Yocum who had parked it near the El Poche and taken his keys with him. When he returned to his car he found it gone and immediately reported the loss to the San Gabriel Police Department. He had given no one permission to drive the car.

In a statement given to one of defendant's adjusters, plaintiff had said that after Larson's disappearance she got into a car which she thought was his and drove off, which was the last thing she purported to remember before her awakening at the hospital.

The accident resulted in civil judgments against plaintiff totalling about $13,000.00. Yocum, whose Cadillac was a total loss, was one of the judgment creditors.

At the time of the accident plaintiff was the owner of a 1955 Chevrolet stationwagon, ² the operation of which was insured by a policy issued by the defendant.

The controversy before us centers on the question whether Mr. Yocum's Cadillac was a 'non-owned' automobile as defined in defendant's policy.

In relevant part, the policy provision in question reads as follows:

'Such insurance as is afforded by this policy * * * with respect to the owned automobile applies to the use of a non-owned automobile by the named insured * * * and any other person or organization legally responsible for the use by the named insured * * * of an automobile not owned or hired by such other person or organization Provided such use is with the permission of the owner or person in lawful possession of such automobile.' (Italics added.)

The issue is whether the italicized clause modifies the entire insuring agreement or merely the protection afforded to 'any other person or organization legally responsible for the use by the named insured.' ³

We approach the task of interpretation with the rules on how to construe insurance policies well in mind. (Gray v. Zurich Insurance Co., 65 Cal.2d 263, 273, 54 Cal.Rptr. 104, 419 P.2d 168; Steven v. Fidelity & Casualty Co., 58 Cal.2d 862, 27 Cal.Rptr. 172, 377 P.2d 284; Continental Cas. Co. v. Zurich Ins. Co., 57 Cal.2d 27, 32, 17 Cal.Rptr. 12, 366 P.2d 455.) All uncertainties are to be resolved against the insurer. '* * * If semantically permissible, the contract will be given such construction as will fairly achieve its object of securing indemnity to the insured for the losses to which the insurance relates. * * *' (Wildman v. Government Employees' Ins. Co., 48 Cal.2d 31, 35, 307 P.2d 359, 362.) At the same time we must not 'indulge in a forced construction so as to fasten a liability on the insurance company which it has not assumed.' (Jarrett v. Allstate Ins. Co., 209 Cal.App.2d 804, 810, 26 Cal.Rptr. 231, 234; Pacific Employers Ins. Co. v. Maryland Casualty Co., 65 Cal.2d 318, 323, 54 Cal.Rptr. 385, 419 P.2d 641.)

Semantically and grammatically the policy provision is not even ambiguous. A limiting clause is to be confined to the last antecedent, unless the context or evident meaning requires a different construction. (Elbert, Ltd. v. Gross, 41 Cal.2d 322, 326--327, 260 P.2d 35; Grant v. Hipsher, 257 Cal.App.2d 375, 383, 64 Cal.Rptr. 892.) If there were a comma between the words 'organization' and 'provided' the result might be different, but there is none. The proviso therefore modifies only the coverage extended to entities other than the named insured.

We realize that the rule of the last antecedent is merely an aid to construction, applicable only where there exist uncertainties and ambiguities. (Kelly v. State Personnel Board, 31 Cal.App.2d 443, 448, 88 P.2d 264; 17 A C.J.S. Contracts § 305; 82 C.J.S. Statutes § 334.) This merely means, however, that if the clear intent of the parties is opposed to the application of the rule, the rule must yield. No such situation is presented here.

It is suggested that it shocks the conscience that coverage should be extended to a thief. ⁴ There are two answers to this: first, plaintiff was not necessarily a thief in the criminal sense; second, in the past the insurance industry has extended such coverage from time to time. In Risjord and Austin, Automobile Liability Insurance Cases, Standard Provisions and Appendix, we find reprinted certain standard provisions that have been commonly in use in the industry. As far as the standard policies reproduced in that work are concerned, no limitation with respect to permission is found in the 1947 Basic Automobile Liability Policy (Ibid., p. 6), in the 1955 Basic Automobile Policy (Ibid., pp. 22--23), or in the 1956 Family Automobile Liability Policy (Ibid., p. 37). The 1958 Family Automobile Liability Policy does contain a proviso which purports to restrict the coverage to permissive driving. (Ibid., p. 57.) ⁵ Similar provisos are found in the 1959 Package Automobile Policy (Mutual) (Ibid., p. 86) and the 1959 Special Automobile Policy (Stock) (Ibid., p. 120). Starting with the 1963 Special Package Automobile...